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The Revolution of 1905-1907 and the Crisis of Polish Catholicism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Robert Blobaum
Robert Blobaum*
Affiliation:
Department of History at West Virginia University
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Extract

The Revolution of 1905-1907 in Russian-ruled Poland, with its dramatic manifestation of the transformation of the country’s political culture, marks a major, if not entirely appreciated, watershed in modern Polish history. Influenced, if not sparked by events in the central provinces of the Russian Empire, most notably Bloody Sunday, the revolution in Russian Poland quickly acquired a momentum of its own based on local conditions. In Poland the revolution was characterized by several nationwide general strikes and the sudden emergence of a viable labor movement; by a long, bitter, and partially successful boycott of the Russified school system; by unprecedented popular striving for the benefits of secular culture and education; by the gmina (communal) movement in the countryside that aroused a large part of the Polish peasantry from its traditional indifference to national issues; and by the rapid growth of political and social organizations that claimed to represent the interests of mass constituencies. Preceded by four decades of fundamental demographic, economic, and social change, the revolution propelled the largest and most significant part of Poland into a new era of broad, popular participation in the political, social, and cultural life of the country.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , Winter 1988 , pp. 667 - 686
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1988

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References

I wish to acknowledge the generous support of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe of American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the U.S. Department of Education in funding the research presented in this article.

1. Strzeszewski, Czesław and Bender, Ryszard, eds., Historia katolicyzmu społecznego w Polsce, 1832–1939 (Warsaw, 1981), pp. 201–256 Google Scholar, as well as the more specific works of Bender, Społeczne inicjatywy chrześcijańskie w Królestwie Polskim, 1905–1918 (Lublin, 1978), Dzwonkowski, Roman, Listyspoleczne biskupow polskich (Paris: Editions du Dialogue, Société d'Editions Internationales, 1974)Google Scholar and Wóycicki, Aleksander, Chrześcijański ruch robotniczy w Polsce (Poznań: Nakt. Księg., 1921)Google Scholar. For an interestinganalysis of research on popular religion during the period, see Olszewski, Daniel, “Stan i perspektywy badań nad religijnością XIX i początku XX wieku,” Nasza Przeszłośń 59 (1983): 45–67.Google Scholar

2. The Marxist approach to the history of the Church in Poland was established by the young Leszek Kołakowski. For the period and issues considered here, see his “Kwestia robotnicza w doktrinie politycznej Watykanu,” Nowe Drogi 8, No. 6 (1954): 71–88. With minor modifications the same ideological tone wascontinued in the short-lived periodical, Studia z Dziejów Kościoła Katolickiego. Unfortunately, R. F. Leslie, an otherwise careful historian, uncritically accepts the Marxist perspective, specifically charging the Churchwith entering an “unholy alliance” with the National Democrats in 1905 to organize illiterate workers into “a counter-revolutionary force “; see his History of Poland Since 1863 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 89–90.

3. In particular, see Kalabiński, Stanistaw, ed., Carat i klasy posiadające w wake z rewolucją 1905–1907 w Królestwie Polskim. Materiały archiwalne (Warsaw, 1956), nos. 75, 140, 222, 240, 414, and 435Google Scholar.

4. For example, the articles by Bogumił Grott, “Rola katolicyzmu w ideologii obozu narodowego w świetle pism jego ideologów i krytyki katolickiej,” Dzieje Najnowsze 12, no. 1 (1980): 63–94 and TeodorMistewicz, “Rola religii i kościoła rzymsko-katolickiego w świetle publicystyki polskiego ruchu nacjonalistycznego, “Kwartalnik Historyczny, 4 (1985): 765–789, which provide dispassionate discussions of theinteraction between the Church and the nationalist movement. On the theme of Catholicism and the socialistmovement, see Andrzej Chwalba, “Krzyż i czerwony sztandar,” Znak 341 (April 1983), pp. 645–667, and “Czy socjalista może byń katolikiem?,” Kwartalnik Historyczny 92, no. 2 (1985): 235–250.

5. These sources include Archiwum Diecezjalne w Kielcach (ADK), Archiwum Diecezjalne w Pfocku (ADP), Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych (AGAD), Archiwum Państwowe w Łublinie (APL), Archiwum Państwowe w Lodzi (APL) and Archiwum Panstwowe m. st. Warszawy (APW

6. By 1870, 227 clerics had been exiled, 37 sentenced to death, 200 imprisoned, and 44 forced to fleethe country; Bender, Społeczne inicjatywy chrześcijańskie, p. 38–39.

7. Such fears were not baseless. In 1905 the Warsaw governor-general, George Skalon, threatened toclose all churches that had become forums for patriotic demonstrations and the singing of national hymns;Warsaw governor-general to the Polish bishops, 30 September (13 October), 1905, APL Kancelaria Gubernatora Lubelskiego (KGL) 1905: 18.

8. See Blejwas, Stanislaw, Realism in Polish Politics: Warsaw Positivism and National Survival in Nineteenth Century Poland (New Haven: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies; Columbus, Ohio: Distributed by Slavica, 1984)Google Scholar.

9. Between 1865 and 1897, the entire population of the kingdom increased by 77.2 percent while theurban population increased by 131.3 percent.

10. “Trudności duszpasterstwa w wielotysiacznych parafiach,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 3, no. 5 (1907), pp. 298–302.

11. Ibid.; Wóycicki, Chrześcijański ruch robotniczy, pp. 71–72.

12. Bogdalski, Czesław, Wspomnienia z misyi odprawianych od 1906–1908 r. w Królestwie Polskim (Krakow, 1908)Google Scholar.

13. Fulman, Marian, “Wielkomiejskie i fabryczne parafie,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 2, no. 2 (1906), p. 77.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 80.

15. APW, Zarząd Oberpolicmajstra Warszawskiego (ZOW) 1549, 1552, 1556–1557, 1563, 1565, 1577, 1579, 1586, 1588, 1592, 1594–1596, 1598–1600, 1602, 1606, 1617, 1619, 1627, 1629–1633, 1636, 1638, 1640–1643, 1645, 1649–1650, 1655–1656, 1659, 1663–1664, 1672, 1675, 1678, 1680, 1682–1684, 1688–1689, 1695–1697, 1701–1702, 1704, 1707–1709, 1713, 1716–1717, 1721, 1723–1724, 1726, 1728, 1730, 1732–1733, 1735–1737, 1744, 1747, 1750, 1752, 1754, 1761, 1763–1767, 1770–1773, 1776–1778, 1780–1781, 1788–1790, 1795–1796, 1799, 1801, 1807, 1809, 1812, 1814, 1817, 1822, 1824, 1826, 1829, 1832–1834, 1840, 1842, 1853, 1862, 1878, 1882, 1884, 1889, 1900, 1902–1903, 1907

16. Bishop of Kielce to the diocesan clergy, 23 November 1905, ADK, Akta Konsystorskie (AK)OA-2/9.

17. The problem of absorbing Christian sociology “in one gulp” was addressed by Max, Ks. K., “Działalnośń społeczna kapłana,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 2, no. 6 (1906): 321–328.Google Scholar

18. Bender, Społeczne inicjatywy chrześcijanskie, pp. 46–51, 59–60.

19. Warsaw superintendent of police to the acting Warsaw governor-general, 18 March (31), 1904, AGAD, Kancelaria General Gubernatora Warszawskiego (KGGW) 2280.

20. Ibid., 2308, and governor of Piotrkow to the Warsaw governor general, 28 February (12 March)1904.

21. Pastoral letter of the archbishop of Warsaw to the Polish people, undated, AGAD, Zbiór Anny Branickiej (AB) 2311, plik XIII; “Orędzie Arcypasterskie,” Przegląd Katolicki, 16 March 1905.

22. The archbishop of Warsaw to Polish parents, 10 June 1905, AGAD ABdruk 257. Popiel's positioncontrasted starkly with that of the episcopate in Prussian Poland, which, despite its similarly loyalist inclinations, publicly condemned Prussian school policies aimed at Germanization, leading to tacit clerical supportof the Poznan school strikes of 1906–1907; see Hagen, William W., Germans, Poles and Jews: The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East, 1772–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 183 Google Scholar.

23. At the same time, however, Archbishop Popiel urged the tsar through private channels to allow the introduction of Polish into the schools; Tadeusz Krawczak, “Rewolucja a zycie spoteczno-religijne. Powstanie mariawitów,” unpublished manuscript (Institute of History, Warsaw University), p. 10

24. Chwalba, “Krzyz i czerwony sztandar,” p. 651.

25. In the large working-class parish of Chojny near Łódż, fifteen thousand to twenty thousand participated in evening masses conducted by Krakow Franciscans at the end of 1907; Bogdalski, Wspomnienia zmisyi odprewianych, p. 322.

26. Bishop of Kujawy-Kalisz to the Catholic population, 20 December 1905, ADK AK OA-2/13;bishop of Ptock to the Polish people, 31 December 1905, ADP, Papiery Wtadzy Duchownej (PWD).

27. ADK, Konferencje Dekanalne (KD) OD-2/1.

28. Richard D. Lewis, Revolution in the Countryside: Russian Poland, 1905–1906, Carl Beck Papersin Russian and East European Studies, 506 (Pittsburgh: Carl Beck Papers, 1986), p. 14; Polak 9 (September 1905); Kalabiński, Stanisław and Tych, Feliks, eds., Walka chlopow Krolestwa Polskiego w rewolucji 1905–1907 (Warsaw, 1958) 1 (no. 801): 892–894 Google Scholar.

29. ADK AK OA-2/9.

30. Grott, “Rola katolicyzmu,” p. 68; Mistewicz, “Rola religii,” pp. 786–787.

31. “Błędy ‘Myśli Polskiej',” Przegląd Katolicki 39 (27 September 1906), pp. 593–595; Ks. dr. Wi.Namiotko, “Demokracya narodowa i jej zasady,” Przegląd Katolicki, 5 (31 January 1907), pp. 69–71.

32. The Church demanded that the PMS have a “clear Catholic direction” through the inclusion of arepresentative of the episcopate on its central board as well as the guaranteed influence of teachers of religion in the determination of curricula, subject content, and reading materials at individual schools; administrator of Kielce diocese to the clergy, 15 June 1907 and administrator of Sejny diocese to the clergy and parishioners, 10 May 1907, ADK AK OA-2/13.

33. Brykczyński, Ks. A., “Ważny obowiązek,” Przegląd Katolicki, 52 (26 December 1907), p. 827.Google Scholar

34. Kmiecik, Zenon, Ruch oświatowy na wsi. Królestwo Polskie, 1905–1914 (Warsaw, 1963), pp. 140–147 Google Scholar.

35. For a popular, slanted biography of Wysłouch, see Syska, Henryk, Przychodzień z góry duchu. 0ksigdzu Antonim Szechem (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1955 Google Scholar. A more scholarly approachto his career may be found in Keller, Józef and Poniatowski, Zygmunt, eds., Studia o modernistach katolickich (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnicza Naukowe, 1968, pp. 169–236 Google Scholar.

36. See Fulman, , “Szakala, czy ludzie?” Wiadomości Pasterskie 3, no. 2 (1907): 124–126 Google Scholar, for an impassioneddefense of Wysłouch's “pure and honest” intentions as well as his striving for “Catholic reformwhich would correct the impotence of the Polish Church at a most critical moment for society. “

37. See particularly Ks. Kajetan Szymkiewicz, “List otwarty,” Przeglad Katolicki, 18 (3 May 1906), pp. 268–270 and J. Popiel, “0 p. A. Szechu, i do niego,” Przegląd Katolicki, 45 (8 November 1906), pp. 689–691.

38. Bishop Apolinary Wnukowski of Ptock, even before Wysłouch's departure from the Capuchinorder, banned his publications along with other modernist brochures, books, and newspapers that “aim at the overthrow of revealed religion “; bishop of Płock to the diocesan clergy, 31 December 1907, ADP PWD.

39. “Statystyka sekty mariawitów,” Miesięcznik Pasterski Plocki 10 (1906): 282–283.

40. “Spoteczna działalnośń Matki Marii Franciszki,” Mariawita 4, No. 3 (1962): 29–31

41. Krawczak, “Rewolucja a życie społeczno-religijne,” pp. 14 and 15. The Assembly of Mariavite Sisters was dissolved in Płock diocese by Bishop Wnukowski but allowed to continue a tenuous existenceelsewhere.

42. ADKAKOA-2/9.

43. See Ks. Br. 0., “Wichrzenia herezyi ‘mankietników',” Przeglpd Katolicki, 9 (1 March 1906), pp. 125–127 as well as “Pseudomarjawici, ich początek i odstępstwo od Kościoła,” Miesięcznik Pasterski Płocki 1 (1906): 18–32.

44. Already at the end of February 1906, the Warsaw governor-general had issued a cirular to provincialand police authorities, instructing them to remain neutral in the religious quarrels of the population, while acting firmly to prevent and eliminate incidents of violence; APW ZOW 1938.

45. Szkopowski, Ks. M., “Czarny mankiet,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 1, no. 10 (1905): 613–619.Google Scholar

46. “Zniesienie ograniczeń religijnych,” supplement to Przegląd Katolicki, 17 (27 April 1905).

47. Ibid., 18 (4 May 1905).

48. Demonstrators often demanded crosses, church emblems, and banners from the clergy as well asthe participation of priests in patriotic processions; circular of the general consistory of the Warsaw archdioceseto the clergy, ADK AK OA-2/12.

49. For instance, a number of clergy in Piotrków province, supported by the bishop of Kujawy-Kalisz Stanisław Zdzitowiecki, “illegally” began to record civil documents in Polish as an act of solidarity with thegmina movement; APŁ, Kancelaria Gubernatora Piotrkowskiego (KGP) 1565.

50. Police chief of Częstochowa to the Piotrków governor, 11 October (24), 1906; APL KGP 1566.

51. See Hagen, Germans, Poles and Jews, pp. 118–158 and Blanke, Richard, Prussian Poland in the German Empire, 1871–1900 (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1981), pp. 22–26, 81Google Scholar.

52. Szymański, Ks. A., “O pracy społecznej,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 1, no. 3 (1905): 153–176 Google Scholar; Fulman, , “Nasza praca społeczna na dobie,” Wiadomosci Pasterskie 1, no. 6 (1905): 389–395 Google Scholar

53. “Uchwały 1-go krajowego zjazdu duchowieristwa w Warszawie,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 1, no.12 (1905): 806–811.

54. Statutes of the Association of Christian Workers, Warsaw province, 8 December (21), 1906, APWZOW 667.

55. Wóycicki, Chrześcijański ruch robotniczy, p. 97.

56. Fulman, “Stowarzyszenie robotników rolnych,” Wiadomosci Pasterskie 2, no. 12 (1906): 729–735.

57. APWZOW 1617, 1629, 1680, 1801, and 1878.

58. Police Chief of Częstochowa to the Piotrków governor, 29 December 1905 (11 January 1906); APt.KGP 1589.

59. Dzwonkowski, Listy społeczne biskupów polskich, pp. 145, 162.

60. The bishop of Kielce was also a prime mover behind the organization of four-day “social courses “for the clergy, which were held in Warsaw in the summer of 1907; ADK AK OA-2/9.

61. Wóycicki discusses seminary reform in Chrześcijański ruch robotniczy, pp. 144–145; church constructionis discussed in Fulman, “Wielkomiejskie i fabryczne parafie,” p. 77; Marjanski's complaint is in Bronisław Maryański, Ks., “Sprawa robotnicza,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 2, no. 11 (1906): 641–650.Google Scholar

62. The reformers’ ties to the National Democrats can be traced to the involvement of several dozenpriests in the Collegium Secretum, a circle of clergymen organized under nationalist auspices at the turn ofthe century that stressed cooperation with the lay intelligentsia in national, social, and educational work;Bender, Spoteczne inicjatywy chrześcijańskie, pp. 55–56.

63. For example, Bishop Wnukowski of Płock diocese scolded reformers for “participating in nationalistmeetings well outside their parishes and diocese “; bishop of Płock to the diocesan clergy, 23 December 1905, ADPPWD.

64. For calls for resignation see bishop of Płock to the diocesan clergy, 1 February 1907; Namiotko, , “Polska Macierz Szkolna,” Przegląd Katolicki, 51 (19 December 1907), pp. 149–153Google Scholar; for an example of press attacks see the article “Stronnictwo narodowe-demokratyczne a Kościół,” Wiadomości Pasterskie 3, no. 6 (1907): 377–381.

65. Przegląd Katolicki, 1–2 (11 January 1906), pp. 1–3; 3–4 (25 January 1906), pp. 25–28; and5–6 (8 February 1906), pp. 49–51.

66. Ks. Antoni Szaniawski, “Pilna potrzeba,” Przegląd Katolicki, 20 (18 May 1905).

67. Woycicki, Chrześcijański ruch robotniczy, pp. 152–154.

68. The responses to the questionnaire were sent to the consistory of Kielce diocese and are in ADKKD OD-2/1. Unfortunately, data on the age and social background of the respondents are not available.